I-Corps: Novel Vortex Raman Spectrometers for Materials, Clean Energy and Biological Applications

Cuny City College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

A Raman spectrometer is one of the main tools for molecular detection in materials: solid, liquid or gas. This I-Corps team has shown that a Raman spectrometer, when modified, can have ultra-high spectral and spatial resolutions. The proposed technology entitled "Vortex Raman Spectrometer (VRM)" developed by the team offers new ways of molecular detection, previously not possible. There are several categories of potential users for the proposed technology: (i) academic researchers (chemists, physicists, and material scientists) who will use VRM to study new phenomena and new materials; (ii) pharmaceutical companies who will use VRM to design new drugs and for quality control; (iii) semiconductor and optical fiber manufacturers who will use Vortex Raman imaging for monitoring inhomogeneity on the surfaces of their products and control the impurity levels in their products; and (iv) government agencies such as DHS and border control authority who will use VRM for real-time detection of explosives and illegal drugs. The VRM offers solutions to these potential users that are more efficient or sometimes new solutions to their problems that are currently not available. Vortex Raman microscope (VRM) uses Vortex light instead of ordinary Gaussian beam. An optical vortex is a point of zero intensity. Its existence as a non-trivial solution to Maxwell's equations was predicted by Mike Berry in 1974. The creation of high orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light in Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams has generated a great deal of excitement. The proposed VRM will demonstrate the power of vortex spectroscopy for which forbidden transitions and silent modes will become allowed with LG beams. The theoretical analysis performed by the team has shown the feasibility of Vortex Raman spectroscopy and a number existing of Raman spectrometers will be modified into Vortex Raman spectrometers which will have ultra-high spectral and spatial resolutions. Several different types of spatial light modulators will be used to turn ordinary Gaussian beam from a laser into Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams. The Vortex nature of the LG beams needs to be preserved in VRM to perform Vortex Raman measurements.